1
INTRODUCTION Ibn azm was one of the unique and controversial Muslim scholars in Islamic history. He lived in Andalusia (Muslim Spain) in the 11 th century where Mālikī school was followed by its rulers and people. After reading Shāfi‘ī's criticism of Mālik he followed the Shāfi‘ī school, but through his further research and study of criticism of this school, he finally abandoned it and based his fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) exclusively on the Qur’ān and the Sunnah of the Prophet. This was also the view of the vanished Zāhirī school founded by Abū Sulaymān Dā’ūd in Iraq about two centuries earlier. He was then reviving this Zāhirī school which was based on literal interpretation of the divine text (the Qur'ān and the Sunnah of the Prophet) among people and scholars who did not share his views. As a Zāhirī school follower and exponent Ibn azm did not give any important value of the third and fourth sources of Islamic law, namely, the ijmā‘ (consensus of Muslim scholars) and the qiyās (analogy). The ijmā‘ of the whole scholars or the whole Muslim ummah (community) could not have taken place in the past nor will be in future, as there were Muslim scholars among jinn whose opinions were unknown. What other scholars call qiyās he called it dalīl (textual evidence). One example is that the killing of one's parents is prohibited based on the prohibition of saying to them a word of disrespect (Qur’ān 17:23). This qiyās was not accepted by Ibn azm, although he said the prohibition of killing one's parent but based on the Qur’ānic verse prohibiting the killing of anyone except in the just cause (Q. 6:151). Ibn azm was a judge in Muslim Andalusia and was considered one of the mujtahidīn. His views in many Islamic legal issues in general and his concept of ijmā’ in particular are still relevant to our research and study of Islamic legal thinking.